Tips For Easing The Pain When Tweezing Your Eyebrows

Once unheard of, grooming our brows is perhaps the biggest necessary evil of our beauty routine. Eyebrows frame the face and give it structure, even having a natural arch and shape, according to brow experts at Benito, but can sometimes become overgrown. In order to keep them clean and tidy while looking natural, we need to remove excess hair growing around the brow's natural shape, this is known as grooming the eyebrows.

As the years have passed and the popularity of eyebrow grooming grew, many new options for removing hair to perfect brow shape have entered the market. Some of these options include threading, waxing, and microblading, but it still seems like tweezing is many women's go-to method. Tweezing is often more DIY-friendly, inexpensive, and can even yield longer-lasting results, according to Healthline. Not to mention, the other methods often come with more risks, such as irritated skin, ingrown hairs, and possible infection.

Unfortunately, while tweezing has many pros, it doesn't come without its cons. While any method of pulling hair from the root is uncomfortable, tweezing can take longer, therefore prolonging any pain. Luckily, there are many ways you can minimize the discomfort that comes with tweezing. We have curated five tips for easing the pain when tweezing your brows into a snatched shape.

Hot water or steam opens the pores making it easier to pull the hairs from them. This will cause less pulling and tugging and ultimately result in less pain. Consider taking a steamy shower immediately before plucking in order to help the hairs slide out of the follicles. 

A shower is often the best option, too, because clean skin is the best to tweeze. It rids the skin of bacteria that can seep into your pores. If you aren't looking to shower right before tweezing, Anastasia Soare, founder of Anastasia Beverly Hills, tells Allure that she recommends using a hot compress to "help open up the pores and ease discomfort." This could be as simple as a warm washcloth draped across the skin for a few minutes before the plucking begins. Another way to open the pores is to fill a bowl or pot with boiling water and sit with your face over the bowl, allowing the steam to open your pores.

This may seem like a given, but using great tweezers can make all of the difference when grooming your brows. Bad tweezers that don't grip the hair can cause unnecessary pulling and tugging that result in extra pain. Tweezers should always have a tip that provides a firm grasp "to prevent breakage of hair follicles and ingrown hairs," dermatologist Rachel Nazarian tells Byrdie. 

Slant tips are often recommended as they firmly grip the hair from the root, whereas pointed tips often provide no grip and can make it hard to grasp your thinner hairs. We recommend the Tweezerman Slant tweezers, as they have 4.7 stars on Amazon and have been an Allure 'Best of Beauty' award winner every year since 2001. Consumer Lisa Perry left an Amazon review raving about the Tweezerman tweezers, saying that "even a hair that has barely poked its head out of the skin, it picks up and pulls it out from the root."

Believe it or not, there is a correct way to tweeze your eyebrows. It may seem like a free-for-all once your tweezers are in hand, but tweezing your brow hairs in the right direction can make all the difference. In order to experience less pain when tweezing, you should always tweeze from the base of the hair and in the direction of the hair growth, according to Healthline. 

If you do not tweeze from the base, your hair could break off, leading to double the work and pain. Plucking from the opposite direction is known to cause more pain, as well as leave your skin more irritated afterward. When you pluck from the direction of the hair growth, there is a straight path out of the follicle for your hair. The opposite occurs when you pull hair from the opposite direction of hair growth, causing unnecessary pain and possible ripping of the skin.

If you are extremely sensitive to pain, a numbing gel can be a lifesaver for tweezing your brows. "Slather on a soothing numbing cream over the area to alleviate pain during your tweeze," says the founder of Sania's Brow Bar Sania Vucetaj to Teen Vogue. No need for anything fancy, as even Orajel is known to do the trick. Simply leave the cream on for a few minutes until you can no longer feel yourself pulling out the hairs, this will leave you with a base for a pain-free tweeze. 

Be aware, though, as not being able to feel yourself pulling away at your brow hairs can lead to over-tweezing. The last thing you want is to be left with no brows rather than the snatched shape you were going for. If you are worried about over-tweezing with Orajel, you can also take a pain-reliever tablet 30 to 45 minutes before tweezing begins to minimize pain. 

After your tweeze is over, it is likely the area will be sore and swollen. To prevent this and ease the pain, aftercare is essential. "After any hair-removal procedure, I always apply a bit of cortisone. This precludes a lot of pain drama," dermatologist Mona Gohara tells Allure. This will reduce irritation on your brows, just like it does with bug bites and eczema. Simply rub it in well anywhere that you tweezed. 

Also, consider using an ice pack after tweezing to reduce any swelling and inflammation. However, you should not use a warm compress. Where the two are usually used interchangeably, a hot compress may not work as well for the pain from tweezing. The heat from a warm compress can be great for actual pain in your muscles, but after an eyebrow tweeze, we are more focused on reducing the swelling that causes the pain.